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Losing someone

In the ‘long’ cab drives from home – therapy and back I do get a lot of thinking. Staring outside and just have my mind wander off.
A while ago I found this quote;When you lose someone, you don’t lose them all at once. You lose them in pieces over time. ~ Simon Birch
And since then it’s been going in and out of my mind, but today it got stuck and I thought about it a lot more. Of course influences like realizing the loneliness, the loss, things happening in the world or just around me make me think as well.

Luckily I haven’t seen much of death. My uncle died when I was about 13 or 14 years.. I don’t really remember much. He was very sick, with cancer. I was very depressed and I know I was a little afraid because he had changed so much (because of the illness). (I knew him since I was a baby, saw him many times a year) My grandpa died when I was very young (like 1-year-old?) so I don’t remember him.

So a part of me feels like I don’t really have the right to talk about the quote or this stuff, because I haven’t really been through the same, or the worst for that matter.

I’m going to do it anyway, while knowing it’s NOT death, but just estranged.

For instance, my grandmother, whom I love very much. She lives about 2500 km away? So I really don’t get to see her often. And every time I do, I keep wondering ‘was this the last time?’ I try not to think about her leaving the world, not only not being able to say goodbye (money issues) and just knowing when I go to that country, she won’t be there. I had/have a very intense relationship. My grandmother was like my mother for the first 6 years of my life. Took good care of me and gave me a lot of love.
Of course there’s the whole loneliness feeling and of course with that there are a lot of other people’s names attached (well.. a lot isn’t true. a few).

Looking at these kind of people/situations, I do feel I can relate to that quote to some extent. Like when my grandma left Holland, a big part of me felt dead, not being able to go to her room and ask for a hug, just not having her support here 24/7. I do think of it like a big thing (just to paint a picture;), like a puzzle. With maybe 10000 pieces 😉 . When my grandmother left Holland, a lot of pieces got shattered and lost, maybe even 50%. So to me that was huge. But I do realize that over the years, I am still feeling her loss. Her absence. When I do see her.. it’s like she’s already moving away from the world. I don’t know what (and if) I’ll see next time.
So it feels like even though I still had like 50% of the puzzle, over the years and over time, pieces are still breaking/vanishing. And it still hurts. Not like it did, no.. a lot less. But painful enough to have me wonder ‘what the hell is this?’ and have my eye drop a few tears.

Thinking in PTSD terms, I feel like I lost a lot there aswell. I lost my youth, my father, a big piece of my mother… and all those things still hurt. It could be because I am totally in the middle of that right now, accepting.. or trying to accept. Going through these grieving stages, back and forth from denial/anger/hurt (it’s like I’m stuck by the way, especially since I keep going back to the denial part, anyway) so my puzzle is breaking, breaking hard. I’m a little bit afraid I’ll still feel pieces of the puzzle breaking and vanishing 15 years from now. I’m glad it’ll be a lot less painful, but still sad.

It’s like people are irreplaceable. Things like parents or your youth are irreplaceable as well. It isn’t like ‘well I’m 18 now, lost my youth, cried hard about it & now that’s done’.
Of course there are a lot of other great people, I really do NOT deny that. You never know whats around the river bend. But I do know.. it’s not that person. It still hurts.. why does it still hurt?
Will it ever stop hurting?

I do really appreciate the good memories I still have, and I realize I’ll always have them, but do I want to?

When will the last piece go?

I can’t erase, so I’ll take blameBut I can’t accept that we’re estranged